Cable Dominated U.S. Broadband in 2013

With DSL subscriber losses hurting growth at AT&T and Verizon, Comcast was the number-one broadband provider last year in terms of net subscriber additions, Leichtman Research Group said Monday. In its recent study, the company found that the top seventeen cable and telephone providers - which represent 93 percent of the market - acquired over 2.6 million net additional high-speed Internet subscribers in 2013.

"At the end of 2013, the top broadband providers in the US cumulatively had over 84.3 million subscribers, adding 2.6 million subscribers in the past year," Bruce Leichtman, president and principal analyst for Leichtman Research Group, Inc said. "With top Telco providers focused on upgrading customers from DSL to fiber broadband services, cable providers accounted for over 80 percent of the net broadband adds in 2013."

Comcast added about 1.3 million broadband subscribers in 2013, accounting for 49 percent of the total net additions for the top providers. AT&T and Verizon added 3.3 million fibre subscribers (via U-verse and FiOS) in 2013, while having a net loss of 3.05 million DSL subscribers. U-verse and FiOS broadband subscribers now account for 47 percent of Telco broadband subscribers, up from 29 percent at the end of 2011. Telcos are pushing their subscribers off DSL and onto fiber-based broadband as a way to catch up with cable operators in speed. On the other hand, new fiber subscribers are generally old DSL subscribers so there is a process of subtraction and addition.